The university has signed on to participate in the EPA Food Recovery Challenge to help achieve zero waste on campus. The self-reporting program requires participants to measure and then set goals to reduce waste.

A kinesiology class of 50 students partnered with the university’s athletic department to hold a waste-free event at a basketball game. The project diverted 67 percent of waste through a number of measures including offering free popcorn to fans who brought their own container.

(U.S.): The university has begun plans to design and create a biodiesel unit to refine the vegetable oil on campus. Project organizers expect to receive an external grant from the Kansas Soybean Commission to help fund the project.

(U.S.): The university has installed 12 Greenbean Recycle boxes in on-campus dorms to launch its partnership with the nonprofit organization Timmy Global Health. Greenbean Recycle is a software technology company that provides universities with reverse vending machines that accept deposits of recyclable cans and bottles in exchange for five-cent refunds to a PayPal account or charity organization.

The university has expanded the number of locations for e-waste disposal as part of the Sustainability Division’s recycling program. A local company that recycles old electronic goods is collecting discarded items including cell phones, batteries, inkjet cartridges and cameras.

The university has announced the launch of its Holiday Event Recycling campaign through the month of December. The campaign aims to remind the community to reserve recycling and compost bins when planning campus events during the holiday season.

Medical University of South Carolina, College of Charleston, Trident Technical College and The Citadel have contracted with Koeckeritz’s Food Waste Disposal to compost food waste. While collected material is transported to a compost facility for a fee, the program is expected to save money due to reduced landfill costs.

The university has announced plans to reduce the number of trashcans in academic buildings in an effort to increase recycling rates. A grant from Coca-Cola will be used to purchase additional recycling bins that will be placed throughout campus.

A student team has developed an inexpensive machine that can turn discarded plastic waste into useful objects. The group plans to work with Water for Humans, a nonprofit organization, to build three-dimensional printers that can make composting toilets and rain-catchment systems to be used in Oaxaca, Mexico.

In celebration of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Food Recovery Challenge, the university has introduced composting at two dining halls on campus. Food-service workers have begun using “Green Bins” to compost all food and paper food-service items. The university will expand its composting efforts through its Green Bin program beginning in January 2013 to include students, faculty and staff.

The college has adopted a single-stream recycling system in an effort to improve campus participation and decrease waste going to landfills. Existing bins and containers are being repurposed with permanent markings for the new program.

The university’s sustainability department is launching an improved composting program through a new partnership with Growing Power, a local urban-farming initiative. Five campus eateries will participate in the composting initiative.

The university has announced plans to require departments to recycle construction and demolition waste from campus projects starting in winter 2013. Construction and demolition waste materials will be collected and transported to different processors depending on the material type. Campus construction is estimated to generate about 300 to 800 tons of recyclable waste per year.

The college’s Office of Sustainability has partnered with Wellesley Fresh to launch a new compost project in the dining halls. The joint initiative will first address waste generated in food preparation, and will later tackle post-consumer food waste.

(U.S.): In less than a year, the university’s composting operation has diverted 100 tons of food scraps away from landfills and incinerators. The compost has been used throughout the campus, including a university farm that supplies fresh produce to a campus cafeteria and restaurant.

The college increased recycling and reduced trash dumped in the landfill by 13 percent during a three-week competition that ran from late September to mid-October. The campus-wide “RecycleMania” was hosted and organized by the Office of Sustainability and was modeled after the national RecycleMania competition.

Campus Dining Services has begun recycling cooking oil to donate to local schools to use as biodiesel in buses. The university was already recycling its cooking oil to be used as biofuel, but the new program allows the fuel to be used locally without any extra fees for distribution or conversion.

The university has diverted 45 percent of its waste from landfills in the past year, improving by three percent from the previous year. The waste diverted falls into several categories, including leaf and yard waste, electronic waste, organics, furniture, scrap metal, and book recycling. The Sustainability Office is developing an online tool to provide information on recycling and responsible disposal on campus.

(U.S.): The university has received a $10,000 grant that will go toward purchasing 1,000 recycling bins to boost recycling efforts during campus events. Campus Recycling also purchased a recycling dumpster to provide a convenient drop-off site for off-campus students.

The installation of three solar powered trash compactors will allow the college to remove 40 dumpsters. Instead of collecting waste every three to five days from traditional dumpsters, compacted waste can be hauled away every three to four weeks. Waste is weighed and recorded in the unit, allowing the college to explore further ways to reduce and eliminate waste.

In an effort to make campus recycling more convenient, the college has adopted a new co-mingling recycling program. The college has also hired six students to manage the pick-up of outdoor recycling bins and help educate the campus about recycling through improved signage and bin locations.

In an effort to change recycling behavior, Building Services have replaced “Trash” labels on disposal bins with “Landfill” labels. The university hopes the change in labels will encourage students to think more carefully about their consumption choices. Building Services, the Office of Sustainability and Green Leaders will be gauging the results of this program and its potential effects on disposal over the next few months.

The university has made an effort to collect and donate reusable items that might otherwise go to the landfill. Last spring, the university’s Student Cleanup, Recycle and Moveout program donated 30 boxes of books to Better World Books, an organization that raises funds for literacy by selling used books online. Earlier this year, UW Recycling donated 1,540 pounds of food to the University District Food Bank; over 8,000 pounds of clothing to Northwest Center; 2,000 pounds of electronics to InterConnection; and 980 pounds of toiletries and emergency kit backpacks to Real Change.

The Athletic Department has partnered with the Office of Sustainability to create the Be the WE (Waste Eliminator) Program. The program uses student volunteers to serve as recycling ambassadors on football game days to help educate fans about recycling and assist the UW Facilities Department in its recycling efforts. Through the first three home games, the university has recycled 18,920 pounds of plastic and cardboard.

The university has become a zero-landfill institution. Recyclable materials, representing about 50 percent of the university’s trash, are sorted and sent to local recyclers. Waste that cannot be recycled is compacted and converted into energy via emissions-free incineration. Food waste is sent to hog farms.

A recently announced educational project involves a student services plaza, currently under construction, and enormous decorative planters. The plants will not require a lot of soil to thrive and rather than paying for unneeded soil, sustainability and facilities management teams will reuse capped plastic bottles collected from recycling bins on campus. The bottles will add the necessary volume and serve as a reminder of what happens when bottles end up in the landfill.

(U.S.): The campus’ Dining Services has begun composting, diverting about 10 yards of waste a week from the landfill. Food scraps are collected and taken to a facility that produces nutrient-rich soil that is sold to local farmers and residents.

(India): The college has announced plans to create a paper recycling unit on campus to create solid waste management awareness. The college also plans to sell notebooks made from the recycled paper and the money will be used for conducting awareness programs on solid waste management in rural areas of the state.

(U.S.): In an effort to increase the recycling rate on campus, the university has launched a no-sort system. The system will also result in long-term economic efficiency by allowing the Office of Waste Management to make one pass with its trucks around the campus per week instead of two.

(U.S.): Through a collaboration among the Office of Campus Sustainability, Central Student Government, Construction Services and other campus units, more than 100 drinking fountains have been equipped with a bottle refill device. Students helped guide the university’s decision on where to install the refill stations through a survey. This fall, the university also implemented the Planet Blue Water Bottle Initiative. The three-year program will supply all first-year undergraduates with a reusable water bottle when they arrive on campus.

The university’s Center for Urban Environmental Research and Policy Biodiesel Program has partnered with Northwestern University to increase biodiesel production, education and outreach on both campuses.

Bottled water will no longer be available in vending machines, retail outlets or at catered events in an effort to reduce 98,000 plastic bottles that go through the university’s waste and recycling system each year. The university has installed nearly 60 water bottle refilling stations to encourage the campus community to use refillable bottles.

The Office of Sustainability, Facilities Management Services and USC Athletics have partnered to minimize the waste created by tailgaters at football games. About 75 student volunteers from campus organizations will spread out at each home game to educate tailgaters about recycling and strategies for minimizing waste. Volunteers will also be stationed at new recycling and compost bins.

Departments and campus groups will no longer be allowed to use university funds to purchase single-serving bottles of water. In addition, hydration stations will be installed in all future construction and major renovation projects. The institute's National Technical Institute for the Deaf has recently installed two stations.

The Office of Sustainability and Facilities Planning & Management have partnered to increase composting opportunities through pilot programs with schools and departments across the Danforth campus. Through the new initiative, the university's waste is collected for composting and the finished product is sold to local landscaping companies who use it as a soil additive that the university then buys back for use in campus landscaping.

The university has purchased 72 recycling bins designed specifically for placement at tailgate lots during football games. The bins were awarded as part of the Coca-Cola Foundation’s Bin Grant Program.

The Office of Sustainability has launched a new single-stream recycling initiative to boost recycling among the 812 students in campus apartments. The university received a grant from Keep America Beautiful and The Coca-Cola Foundation for 305 recycling bins.

(U.S.): The university has replaced plastic bags with a selection of reusable canvas totes and paper bags at several campus retail locations. The Subway store on campus will also introduce adhesive labels as a means of securing sandwich wrappers, eliminating the need for bags.

(U.S.): To help achieve its goal of zero waste by 2015, the university’s Office of Sustainability has embarked on a baseline audit to identify and prioritize areas for improvement. Students, faculty and staff will fill out a checklist and record the amounts of energy, water, waste and food they conserve this fall.

(U.S.): In an effort to engage students and provide a place to hang out, the new recycling site features benches, wireless Internet, and a wall constructed from recycled broken stones. The sustainable campus fee provided funding for the project.

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The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education is a membership association of colleges & universities, businesses, and nonprofits who are working together to lead the sustainability transformation. Learn more about AASHE's mission.